Water sharing between India and Pakistan: a critical evaluation of the Indus Water Treaty

For nearly 50 years a relatively stable Indus Water Treaty (IWT) moderated competition for the Indus water between Pakistan and India. Rising demand for water in each nation could unsettle this stable relationship, as foreshadowed by the involvement of a third party during 2005–2007 for the first time in the treaty's history. This paper discusses Pakistan and India's experience in the context of other international shared rivers. For the benefit of their people, Pakistan and India could coordinate unilateral development and resolve issues rather than defer them.     

Assessing the Indus Waters Treaty from a comparative perspective

The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty dividing the rivers of the Indus system between India and Pakistan has continued to function through two wars and numerous political tensions. Nevertheless, given mounting pressures on the Indus’ waters due to population growth, climate change and mismanagement, many call for abandonment or renegotiation of the treaty. This article situates these criticisms within the quantitative literature analyzing river treaties to demonstrate that the same critiques are applicable to many treaties. Comparative analysis also reveals that while some of the treaty’s weaknesses can be addressed, important structural obstacles render certain of its deficiencies difficult to correct.     

基于《印度河用水条约》的巴格里哈尔水电站纠纷仲裁分析

巴格里哈尔水电站纠纷是印巴分享印度河水系引发的问题。在印巴《印度河用水条约》的框架下，世界银行专家于2007年2月正式提交了针对这一纠纷的仲裁报告。在《印度河用水条约》概述的基础上，对巴格里哈尔水电站纠纷争议焦点、主要依据和仲裁结果进行论述，提出了两点启示。     

梧桐河灌区灌溉水资源平衡研究

对梧桐河灌区水资源系统进行概化模拟,通过水资源平衡方程对不同频率下的水量要素进行了计算,并对灌区水资源进行分析,得出不同年份灌区地表水、地下水联合运用的灌溉方案.     

Managing Saline Water Intrusion in the Lower Indus Basin Aquifer

In view of the declining surface water sources for irrigated agriculture in Pakistan, farmers are compelled to extract groundwater in order provide to security against uncertain canal supplies during critical crop growth periods. However saline water intrusion can be a major hindrance to the sustainable groundwater development. Against this background, a study was conducted with a three dimensional finite element model (FEMGWST) based on the Galerkin weighted residual method being developed to simulate groundwater flow and the saline water intrusion from underlying poor quality aquifer in response to groundwater pumping through low capacity partially penetrated wells. The model was calibrated with field data collected in the district Khairpur of the Lower Indus Basin. The stability of the model for transient groundwater flow and solute transport against different time marching schemes were evaluated. This study showed that the explicit and the Crank-Nicolson time marching schemes developed the numerical oscillating, the global error and the convergence problem. The calibrated model was applied to predict the impacts of different well configurations on the pumped water quality and on the development of saline water mound at the bottom of the well. It was observed that the saline water intrusion into the fresh groundwater layer was directly related to the well discharge, pumping time and inversely to the thickness of fresh-saline water interface and the number of well strainers installed. The model results suggested that intermittent pumping through multi strainer wells could effectively be used to suppress the saline water intrusion. However multi strainers wells were found to induce saline water intrusion when the thickness of fresh-saline water interface was reduced to 4 m.     

Designing river commissions to implement treaties and manage water disputes: the story of the Joint Water Committee and Permanent Indus Commission

States have signed hundreds of treaties and protocols over their shared rivers. Many of these agreements established commissions to implement the accords and maintain cooperation. Consistent with this expectation, the Israeli–Jordanian Peace Treaty established the Joint Water Committee (JWC). Through a comparison of the JWC with the Permanent Indus Commission, established to manage the Indus River between India and Pakistan, the paper argues that the JWC has been only somewhat effective. To account for the source of effectiveness it is necessary to consider the capabilities vested in commissions. Commissioners can fulfil their tasks when they communicate directly, hold regular meetings, monitor the river's development and possess conflict resolution mechanism.     

水务市场化与水价的市场形成机制

简要论述了水务市场化的过程,提出了供水和排水两个环节可依靠市场定价的观点,找出了水务市场化的具体途径。     

Stability of the Irrigation System in the Indus Basin

ABSTRACT

Environmental degradation is continuing in developing countries and in Eastern Europe. The change in approach with regard to water management and environmental protection which has occurred in developed countries, did not alter our actions. Most of the present scientific effort and technical developments are still offshoots of the technology designed by, and applicable in rich, developed countries. In order to achieve sustainability of the environment in developing countries and Eastern Europe, new, radical, economically efficient and environmentally sound technology, providing a solution to widespread pollution problems, must be developed. The transfer of modern ideas and approaches to environmental problems of today may be more important than the traditional transfer ofknowledge and technology as it is understood and conducted today. Performing pilot projects when the transfer of approaches is the major goal, is perhaps the most important action to which financial means should be allocated, instead of to the construction of facilities designed according to the previously governing technical paradigm. The paper advocates and gives examples of actions based on an ecological approach, which emerges from understanding the cyclicity of material and energy flows in nature.     

Opportunities from Remote Sensing for Supporting Water Resources Management in Village/Valley Scale Catchments in the Upper Indus Basin

Now and in the future, the flows of the Upper Indus Basin (UIB) are and will be depended upon by hundreds of millions of people for their food security and economic livelihoods. Communities in the headwater reaches of the UIB—which contribute the bulk of runoff for the basin—are equally deserving of improved living conditions, but often lag behind downstream communities in benefitting from infrastructure. Harsh and highly variable climatic conditions pose specific challenges for local agricultural activities in the headwater reaches. Improved scientific understanding of tributary basin scale hydrology should support local development work as well as improvements to large scale infrastructure and water resource management. This study focuses on the challenge of providing meaningful quantitative information at the village/valley scale in the upper reaches of the UIB. The typology of the UIB hydrological regimes—as observed in large gauged basins—are examined, with special emphasis on annual cycles and interannual variability. Variations in river flows (as relative anomalies of discharge rates or runoff) are compared to observations of climate parameters (2 m air temperature, precipitation) from both local (point-based) observations and analogous parameters from remote sensing data products from the MODIS instrument. Although the temporal overlap is limited between river gauging data available to this study and the MODIS observational record, numerical analysis of relationships between relative anomalies in the spatial data and river gauging observations demonstrate promising potential of the former to serve as quantitative indicators of runoff anomalies. In order to translate these relationships to the scale of ungauged village/valley catchments, the available remotely sensed spatial data—snow covered area (SCA), land surface temperature derived (LST)—are assessed as analogues for meteorological point observations. The correlations between local (point-based) observations and remotely-sensed spatial data products are tested across a wide range of spatial aggregations. These spatial units range from the primary contributing area (nearly 200,000 km²) of the UIB at its downstream gauging station Besham to a small valley serving a minor settlement (10 km²). The shape and timing of annual cycles in SCA and LST are consistent across the range of spatial scales although the magnitudes of both intra-annual and interannual variability differ with both spatial scale and hydrological regime. The interannual variability exhibited by these spatial data products is then considered in terms of its potential implications for the smaller hydrological units. Opportunities for improvement and extension of this methodology are also discussed.     

A Stream Water Availability Model of Upper Indus Basin Based on a Topologic Model and Global Climatic Datasets

Integrated water resources management at river basin scales and evaluation of effects of climate change on regional water resources require quantitative estimates of space-time variability of monthly discharges within a river network. This study demonstrates that such estimates, which can be called stream water availability, for regional river basins with meager or nonexistent gauge data, can be obtained by combining continuity models of hydrological processes, flow routing, and topology of the river basin. The hydrologic processes can be adequately modeled using high quality databases of hydrologic significance. A stream water availability model is presented for Upper Indus Basin (UIB) utilizing the most up-to-date datasets for topography, temperature, precipitation, net radiation, land cover, soil type, and digital atlas. Multiple datasets have been evaluated and the ones with best accuracy and temporal coverage have been selected for the final model. Upper Indus River and its major tributaries are highly significant in regional water resources management and geopolitics. However, UIB is a poorly studied and largely ungauged river basin with an area of 265,598 km² and extremely rugged topography. Several factors, the chief ones being the challenging terrain and the trans-boundary nature of the basin, have contributed to this knowledge gap. Hydro-climatologically it is a complex basin with a significant cryospheric component. The spatial and temporal variation of the principal climatic variables, namely precipitation, net radiation, and temperature has been thoroughly accounted for in the development of a stream water availability model based on a process model coupled with a topologic model and a linear reservoir model of river flow routing. Model calculations indicate that there are essentially two hydrologic regimes in UIB. The regime that is truly significant in contributing stream flows, originates from the UIB cryosphere containing outstanding glaciers and snowfields. The other regime, generated from wet precipitation and melt water from seasonal snow covers is insignificant due to high rates of infiltration and evaporation in the semi-desert environment prevailing at elevations below perennial snow and ice covers. In general, the modeled stream flow characteristics match with the sparse discharge measurements that are available. Flow in the Indus considerably increases at its confluence with Shyok River and further downstream where other tributaries form the north join the main stem. At or near the outlet of the basin stream flow can vary from less than 800 m³ s^− 1 in the winter and spring to nearly 8,000 m³ s^− 1 in the peak summer and can persist to over 1,500 m³ s^− 1 in the autumn. The importance of snow and glacial melt in Indus River discharge is apparent and any global or regional climate change affecting the equilibrium line elevation of the snow fields in the Karakoram will have a profound influence on the water availability in the Indus. Estimates are made for per capita water availability in Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan territories, controlled by India and Pakistan respectively. Geopolitical significance and climate change effects are discussed briefly.     

加快实现市场水利的进程

自从实行改革开放以来，在党的改革开放路线、方针、政策和邓小平理论的指导下，水利行业已经在为从计划水利向市场水利转变方面做了大量工作，进行了许多有益的探索和卓有成效的改革，有力地推动了水利事业不断地向前发展．然而，这些探索和改革还仅取得了阶段性的、初步的成果．市场水利到底离我们有多远？我们如何为实现这一改革目标奋斗？则是我们当前仍然需要继续深入研究的问题．本文仅就几个不同的侧面作些粗浅的探讨．１水资源短缺和水旱灾害频繁的国情呼唤市场水利市场水利，指的是遵循社会主义市场经济规律，让水利走向市场，建立…     

农村供水工程净水工艺发展

以顺昌县农村饮水安全工程水质净化处理为例,阐述了从简易棕片过滤、正冲洗反过滤池、生物慢滤池、一体化净水器等几个阶段变化,提出使用一体化净水器设备后,在实施农村饮用水过程中,得到广泛应用。     

催化臭氧化——一种有前景的水处理高级氧化技术

介绍了均相和非均相催化剂增加臭氧氧化去除水溶液中有机物的效率 ,催化臭氧化能够氧化或降解单独臭氧不能氧化或降解的难降解有机物 ,减少后续氯化消毒工艺所形成消毒副产物如三氯甲烷等的含量     

Proposed Water Policy for Sri Lanka: The Policy versus the Policy Process

This paper discusses a recent experience of an unsuccessful attempt to adopt water policy for Sri Lanka. The donor-driven nature, top-down approach, lack of transparency, lack of historical and cultural perspectives, inadequate attention to environmental issues and inadequate safety nets have been cited as the major weaknesses of the proposed policy. This paper summarizes the major arguments against the policy document and analyses the reasonableness of the critiques. The paper also analyses two major aspects of the proposed policy--water pricing and tradable water rights--using a comprehensive policy analysis framework. The major lesson learnt is the significance of participatory approaches in formulating water policies.     

Stakeholder collaboration in the Columbia River Treaty Review process

The public participation element of the Columbia River Treaty Review process conducted in the United States was assessed: to what extent did it incorporate participation by basin stakeholders, how importantly did this figure in the minds of stakeholders, and what is the prospect for stakeholder concerns to be given meaningful attention by the US Department of State in deliberations and actions concerning the future of the treaty? The analysis revealed that collaboration is important to stakeholders, and the process facilitated a significant degree of collaboration. The continuation of collaboration in treaty negotiation and in post-2024 treaty implementation was recommended.     

Dividing the Waters of the River Jordan: An Analysis of the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty

Following a long period of war-like conditions Israel and Jordan signed a Peace Treaty in October 1994. As part of this treaty the two countries agreed to settle their differences with regard to the claims they had to the waters of the Jordan basin. The result is that Israel is to keep all the waters of the upper Jordan basin, totalling approximately 600 mcm per annum. In the lower part of the basin Jordan is granted a small share of the waters from the mainstream, together with a more sizeable proportion of the flow of the Yarmouk. The volume of water which Jordan will now have access to is considerably less than the water allocations of the Johnston Plan of the 1950s, which was an independent attempt to divide the waters of the River Jordan in an equitable manner. On the other hand Israel's share is considerably greater. Overall, the treaty seems to be particularly favourable for Israel.     

水利普查与信息化

水利普查是一项重大的国情国力调查,是国家资源环境调查的重要组成部分。水利普查总体方案所确定的普查内容、采集方法、填写规定、录入要求和分析策略,都离不开充分利用当今信息化方面所取得的进展,如何利用信息化技术提高水利普查数据成果质量,水利普查成果如何促进水利信息化发展,都是水利普查工作中面,临和需要解决好的问题。